Cover by Marya Heiman, Strong Image Editing http://www.strongimageediting.com/

This might be news to a lot of you because I’ve kept it pretty much under wraps, but I have a new book coming out next month and you’re looking at the cover for it.

Cherry Girl is my Blackstone Affair spin-off novel about a couple of characters you’ve already met in those books.  Neil McManus, Ethan’s number one partner in his business and a fellow British Special Forces officer from their army days, and Elaina Morrison, the receptionist at Blackstone Security International, helping Brynne with wedding plans and talking smutty romance novels with Gaby at dinner parties.  LOL

Neil and Elaina have quite a history together and you’ll get that story in Cherry Girl.  The main portion of the book is set in time about one year before the events that take place in Naked.  Ethan Blackstone is very much in this but it’s not about him.  This is Neil and Elaina’s story and I hope you’ll fall for them and spread a little of that magical Blackstone Love around and send some their way.

Look for Cherry Girl to release by the end of November.  *yeah, I know I’m being vague but it’s the best I can do*

xxoo R

#NeilLovesCherry   @Raine_Miller on Twitter

~***~

I stayed in Neil’s bed for another moment and tried to take everything in.  I was definitely a mess on the outside, but inside where my heart pounded, I was absolutely floating on cloud nine.

He loved me.  Neil really loved me, but damn if I’d allow him to kiss me again before I got clean and comfortable.  I felt utterly gross and hideous and still had trouble believing all that had just happened in the span of a very few hours.

I left his bed and headed into the bathroom.  The shower was already hot and steaming up the small space.  He’d set out his toothbrush and paste for me to use and even a soft black T-shirt with The Jimi Hendrix Experience in white letters across the front.  I knew Neil was a Hendrix fan and I’d even seen him wearing this very shirt on occasion, and yet the fact he’d picked it out for me in particular, touched me.  I reached for it and buried my face in its softness, inhaling deeply.  Neil’s scent has always been heavenly to me and I’d been addicted to it for years.  Hard to describe, but absolutely lush on my sensibilities.  Like fresh air and forest spice and pure water all combined into the perfect blend of male fragrance.  And I’d been restricted from indulging in it for most of my life.

But not anymore.

I shut the bathroom door, stripped out of my bra and knickers, and got clean in my boyfriend’s shower.  I so love the sound of that!

I’m sure I wore a ridiculous grin on my face the whole time I scrubbed.  Once I was finished in the shower and out brushing my teeth with his personal toothbrush, I still kept grinning into the mirror like an idiot, glad the door was shut and Neil couldn’t see how much of a lovesick fool I was being right now.  Pointless indeed.  He would know it the moment I stepped out anyway.  He probably already did know it.

I left the bathroom dressed in his shirt.  It came down on me to mid-thigh and I’d already decided I was keeping the thing.  Yeah, Neil’s beloved Hendrix shirt would forever belong to me.  I had absolutely no qualms about my thievery either.  I didn’t want to have to be without the scent of him once his leave from the army was over.  That meant his shirt wasn’t getting washed anytime soon.  If ever.

My inner ramblings distracted me to the point I wasn’t thinking about what might be waiting for me when I came out.  But the sight that greeted me upon my return to the bedroom in nothing but my clean skin and Neil’s shirt, was so not what I was expecting.  I stopped dead in my tracks and stared, the towel I was using to hand dry my hair slid from my grip and onto the floor with a soft thud.

Neil was waiting in the bed for me.

Holy Hell he was beautiful, sitting up against the headboard, his wide chest bare for my eyes to drink in.  The cuts and angles of his hard muscles and golden skin in contrast to the white sheets nearly made me break down again.  I could see that his nipples were hard and his gaze on me was deep with liquidity.  Mysterious and sensual with a bit of an edge.  I could only imagine what he might be thinking about right now.

My nipples were hard too, and I felt an involuntary shiver roll down my spine.

I’d seen his body before.  I knew what Neil looked like without his shirt on, and I knew very well about the washboard abs, and how they tapered into a V at his hips that made my insides a quivering mess whenever I was lucky enough to get a decent look at him.  Which wasn’t often, unfortunately.

Neil was blessed with an earthly form that screamed ‘sex god’ for a man.  But I’d never been in a position to think of  him in that way.  Those times I’d seen him had been when he was working out with Ian or roughing ’round with boys at football.  This right now was completely different.  Neil was like this for me and me alone.  He was offering himself to me—his body for my eyes to see, for my hands to touch, and for my lips to kiss.

“You dropped your towel,” he said softly, splaying a hand out over the sheet.

“I know.”  I struggled to breathe through the pounding in my chest and began to reach down for the towel.

“Leave it.”

Neil’s voice was harder, different—a command really.  I froze in step, flipping my eyes up so I could see his face and understand what he meant.

His long muscled arms were stretched out.  “Come here, beautiful,” he said softly.  “Don’t think about anything that scares you right now.  It’s just you and me here.”

Neil kept his arms out, his eyes glittering at me in a way I’d never experienced coming from him before, but thrilling and wonderful at the same time.

“Come to me.  My beautiful Cherry Girl…come over here and let me love you.”

I started walking.

~***~

Elaina Morrison ~Cherry Girl